Meanwhile the seasons of 'revelation' had returned, and as time went on Mohammed was able to summon them at will. Each time the visitation was accompanied, as before, by mysterious physical symptoms and weird bodily contortions. 'His countenance was troubled; he would turn deadly pale or glowing red. He would cover himself with a blanket. He fell to the ground like one intoxicated; foam {42} would appear at his mouth; on the coldest day the perspiration would pour from his forehead. Sometimes he would hear the coming of the revelation like the ringing of a bell.' Sometimes the inspiration would come in true dreams or 'suggestions of the heart'; more often it was Gabriel, once even it was said to be God Himself speaking to him from behind a curtain. But when it was over he spoke his 'suras' which his hearers laid to heart, and afterwards noted down, and so the Korân (or Recitation) was compiled. As a modern Asian quaintly puts it: 'The heart of Mohammed was the Sinai where he received the revelation, and his tablets of stone were the hearts of true believers.' But as Mohammed claimed that these physical seizures which he underwent in times of revelation were evidences of the reality of his divine commission, it was natural that men's thoughts should stray in search of other explanations thereof. His friends remembered that as a boy he had some sort of fit; others recollected seizures of the kind; and men of science and learning since, unwilling to ascribe the {43} origin of the Korân to fits of epilepsy, have shown how in such constitutions there do lie rich but dangerous strains of high emotion, and how a hysterical disposition is not inconsistent with strength of will and a high and lofty purpose. It is an obvious danger for such a nature possessing great thoughts to become possessed by them and be carried beyond the depth where man may walk with sure and certain tread. [Sidenote: Mohammed's Public Avowal.] After three years of these intermittent revelations, and quiet work and conference with his secret society, Mohammed felt prepared to take the big step of his life,--to come out and openly declare himself the Prophet of Arabia and preach his doctrines. He was the less afraid, perhaps, to do so because he held that, except for the all-important claim of his own Prophetship, he taught no new doctrine at all. Historians and scholars since have abundantly shown that all he taught was there before, hidden, indeed, and scattered, without coherence or cohesion, but there nevertheless. Covered with fable and distorted by superstition, it was part of Arabia's sub-consciousness.